Trouble with Blogger

It is 4.19am and I cannot sleep.

Yesterday was incredibly hot and it was a joy to work outside all day but I took a bit more sun than I realised and have probably joined the ranks of many other pale skinned Scots who are also awake suffering from sunburn.

I thought I would try and meddle about with the blog settings to see if I can sort out the spacing issues. It was something to occupy my mind in the middle of the night while I waited for the copious amounts of aloe vera to work on said fried skin.

Honestly, it feels like the first day at school all over again. I can't find anything which relates to spacing and even ventured into the 'advanced' part of the settings for a look. That was a bit scary. Luddites and 'advanced settings' are an anathema.

It is easier to bring colour to my milk white tinged with woad blue Scottish skin than to find the Thing Which You Click On in order to create a space.

My fear is that I click on the wrong thing, wipe the entire blog then end up miserable, confused, with prickly heat and insomnia to boot.

I have mentioned before that as a child of the sixties/ seventies, our nod to technology was the Language Lab where we had to listen to French through earphones while the teacher listened in to our dreadful attempts at emulating French through a thick Black Isle accent.

'Dons the loomin ay, sil voo play". It sounded splendidly exotic spoken by the pupils from Avoch but not in a French way.

Our biggest worry was that if the person who wore the headphones before you had nits or trying to prevent yourself from slipping into a coma by the sheer tedium of the class. And the social isolation of being stuck in a booth so you could not elbow your friend to make her laugh.

"This is the future" the French teacher would boom. "This is the searing end of technology"....

I'm old fashioned and want to write to Blogger in a Dear Sir/ Madam, I am having a faff trying to sort out spacing. Please could you help me? type of letter. With a stamp on it.

What are the odds of this ending up in one paragraph when I press 'publish'? I am compelled to drink Ovaltine. That's it Blogger - you have sent me on the road littered with discarded People's Friends and support stockings.

I have aged and it is all Blogger's fault.

Not Dull at all.

Please bear with me as they have changed 'Blogger' and I am back to faffling about trying to find my way around again. I've had a right carry on trying to sort out the spacing of sentences and the last entry read as if I had wolfed twenty cups of coffee then some Red Bull anditreadlikethis. Anyway, still on the Perthshire trail, today, Dull. It was our fifth wedding anniversary today, five years which have flown past and have been as varied as the weather. We were married in this house, which has to be one of the most picturesque registry offices in Scotland.

It is not a million miles from Dull

Dull has been mentioned a lot in the media recently due to a proposed twinning with 'Boring'. Quiet and tranquil sprang to mind. We saw one or two new builds coorying up to the old established Victorian stone built houses plus an unusual stone which lends itself to many interpretations....

The village appears to be hiding behind some huge boulders that were left by long melted glaciers.

Now forgive me but this is the closest there is to photographing a swear. Ok, not one but just about all the AngloSaxon I know. AllAtOnce. Loudly.

Unseen and unheard was the military jet which divebombed the glen one millisecond after I pressed the shutter. What was seen and heard around the glen, was my nervous reaction freak out to said jet. The ducks of Dull raised their eyebrows.

It was time to return home, neck some chamomile tea, get our little boy to bed, dance with The Farmer. The road back from Dull. The hills of home.

Me and my farmer.

Blowing the trumpet for Perthshire

I don't have very much to say today but instead will let the photographs of rural Perthshire speak for themselves.

Loch of the Lowes, Dunkeld

Melting hail on birch and willow

Bridge and burn

Mist on the hill

Snow on the hills

Spring snow........ As a hot-blooded Highlander, I feel that my homeland is a place of stunning beauty but Perthshire is a jewel. All these hills, moors and lochs are owned by fewer people than I have fingers on one hand. They are desolate and unpopulated due to being kept for 'sport' for a select few. I invite you all to come and sit beside that little burn which feeds the River Braan, empty your mind of troubles, breathe in the fresh air, forget lairds and simply enjoy what Nature provided for all of us.

Earthquakes, Casey Jones and twins

Spring sprang, the lambing happened, the calving has begun. The sunshine came and went and even the snow came back. All in that order.

Easter seems ages ago but it was glorious.

We all went for a picnic on Easter Sunday, became a bit lost but discovered the Comrie Earthquake House

And just along from the Earthquake House, a miniature railway having a rare open day.

Over the bridge made from a crane jib

For a little while, farm work was forgotten, wellies left at home. We were all being Casey Jones, steamin' and a rollin'. We thundered through the woods on the Cannonball express.

We waved wildly to passing trains and their cheerful passengers...

It was a magical day out.

We returned home to a tangle of twins.

The lambing has not gone so well this year but we do have a few good healthy lambs. The weather had turned at the worst possible time and many of our neighbours have lamented heavy losses this year.

The calving has just begun and already there are one or two good calves. The cattle are indoors as it is easier to keep an eye on those due to calf or to move those who have calved into a quiet area. They need fed and checked several times a day and The Farmer is never a million miles away from the cattle courts just now.

There are a gazillion tiny chicks too - they just appear out of straw bales or overwintered machinery led by proud and noisy mothers. The entire farm seems very noisy just now, everywhere echoes to the sound of lowing, bleating, quacking or cackling. And the odd muttered swear when things go pear shaped for the humans.

We have had tick bites, a spider bite (me) and the usual Spring work injuries. The Farmer had the worst one when he overstretched to reach something and did not notice the handle of the wheelbarrow just lower than waist height which rapidly made contact with bits slightly lower than waist height.
Our young son was miffed as his Dad lay on the floor gasping. Son wanted to see the lambs and his Dad would not talk.
I took him to see the lambs while his Dad tried to feel vaguely human again and his speech or normal gait returned.

So injuries healed, nuclear strength insect repellant applied, things are ticking over, 'scuse pun.

Barley and oat sowing if it ever stops raining.

Bagsy I get to be Casey Jones in the tractor. Steamin' and a rollin'.

How not to take photos of a collie.

Grace.

Notoriously difficult to photograph.

She has a knack of wrecking a photo.

Here is her tail.

And here she is doing that 'lie flat as a pancake behind a potato sack' thing that collies do.

Or the 'merge into the shadow of the cow shed so we only see her tail' photo.

And 'dive out of shot before GentleOtter can click the thingy' pic.

Pie on the other hand is photogenic. He will sit looking like the saddest dog in the world because he is in the back seat while Grace is in the front seat having the worst dog photo taken.

Today, I managed to get a photograph of Grace's face. It has taken months and many, many bad photos.
So here she is....

Changes

I rather nervously went in to the gubbins of the blog settings and footered about with bits here and there.

The snow has vanished from the hill a long time ago, there are cattle in the field instead of sheep and I had a notion to put up a new picture.

The photo I chose, one of the little stream in front of the house, ended up so large that you could almost sit with your feet in the water and slap wildly at the midges.
The size of the picture vexed my computer and set the fan off to tornado mode.

Next day (because I had no technical clue what I had done so shut down the computer and went to bed), the computer went crazy as it was fired up but settled down once the vast picture was removed and replaced by one of Bonnie the Wensleydale.

For Luddite technophobes like myself, computers tend to do irrational and unexpected things, whirring and the like. You have to have a basic language understanding of, oh, timelines, up and downloads, side loads, faffloads.

It is a great muncher of time, faffing and footering with a machine which remembers everything you have asked it to do. Unlike me.
The computer is forgiving of the Kafkaesque interruptions which occur when you are in mid faff and borderline panic at having pressed a key which makes the whizzing start again only to be asked "Mum. Do humans eat sea horses?" or "Why are Jupiter and Venus in a line?"

This has been a week of change for all of us.

The land around the farm has changed colour from the buff coloured pastures which slept all winter to the rich brown freshly ploughed soil. The fields are ready to receive fresh crops and new grass.

We have all responded very well to the sun which dried out the wet fields and warmed the earth, warmed our exposed limbs and started the hens laying eggs again.

I changed into my heron mode. I told my family that one day, I would stop colouring my hair to the colour it had been all my life and let it turn white.

I had gone through being The Maiden, had been enriched by children and learning during The Woman/ Mother years and felt ready to embrace the Wise Woman/Crone phase of my life.
Each stage overlaps and is intricately interwoven, creating a whole.

I see the vulnerability and fresh beauty of the Maiden in my daughter and feel able to guide her through her journey using the wisdom and experiences learned during my fifty one years.

The Woman and Mother are eternal.

The Wise Woman is just beginning her journey; slower in step, more astute and perspicacious, ready to embrace the new experiences.

I like the change. It brings freshness and regeneration.

A reflection of the Spring and synchronicity to the heartbeat of the seasons, the land.

Happy World Water Day!

World Water Day trended this morning on Twitter.

So many people never give water a thought; it is just there. Turn on a tap, washing machine, shower, it is there and good for use.

So many people also give water a though. It is not there. For many it is a travail to gather it, a worry to drink it.

I wanted to show what is happening to our water supply. Just to recap, we are in temporary rented accommodation as our farmhouse is uninhabitable and our farm water supply is undrinkable.
Last winter, we were without any supply at all for 39 days.
My husband supplied us in the temporary home with raw water taken from our farm, a few miles away.
I believe that the physical effort of lugging by tractor 200 gallons from farm to here, every three days, led directly to his heart attack.
The raw water which we had no alternative to use (due to being blocked in by snow) was directly responsible for our family's gastro intestinal problems and ongoing medical treatment for inflamed oesophagus problems.

These pictures are taken from our 'temporary' home. It is fed by a private water supply which is collected from hill water.

It really is a beautiful view.
Note the scar made by the Beauly to Denny power line. The Roman fort (to the left) will house an enormous pylon.
Note also the large white pile of stuff to the right of the picture.
I hope you are not eating as I zoom in on the next picture.

This is a picture of several hundred tons of human faeces. Note how well it is fenced off and how well the public notices are displayed.

And a few hundred tons more although this was taken a couple of years ago. The smell is indescribable and can make people vomit.

This is our water holding tank. Leaks a bit and had a huge crack 2/3rds down it. Green slime oozes out of it. I have an assumption that if things are able to ooze out of it, things are also able to ooze in to it.
The tank belongs to the landowner. The hill is dotted with such tanks which feed individual houses. Mine is one of the better tanks.

This picture shows the human faeces being spread. The water tank is slightly to the right of the spreader. A fine mist of human faeces can clearly be seen being spread very close to our water supply. The line of reeds which are centre right of the picture, grow over the old cast iron in parts/lead pipe which leads to our house.

This is a picture of human waste being spread just beside a small lochan - you cannot see the water as it is surrounded by trees and shrubs but it is fenced off for duck shooting. The water from the lochan runs into a burn , past a local beauty spot and famous salmon jump then runs into a tributary of the Tay.

Cattle were grazing the day that the human faeces was spread. Their pasture had a good coverage of 'sludge'. It would have been impossible for the cattle to avoid ingestion.

This is a picture of our water filters. They were changed a week ago and will need changing in another fortnight, perhaps sooner. If the filters are not renewed every three weeks, we do not receive water.

Our own farm water supply does not have a water filtration system as we have not found one which can cope with the level of pollutants and organic matter in our water.

Please give thanks when you turn on your tap and clean water pours out.

This is happening in Scotland, 2012. Many thousands of people are supplied by private water supplies.

I wish we all had clean water.